Earthweek: Drought may force Australia residents out of town

Feb. 12, 2014

BAKERSFIELD, CA - FEBRUARY 6: A dog hangs around an abandoned farmhouse on February 6, 2014 near Bakersfield, California. Now in its third straight year of unprecedented drought, California is experiencing its driest year on record, dating back 119 years and possible the worst in the past 500 years. Grasslands that support cattle have dried up, forcing ranchers to feed them expensive supplemental hay to keep them from starving or to sell at least some of their herds, and farmers are struggling with diminishing crop water and whether to plant or to tear out permanent crops which use water year-round like almond trees. About 17 rural communities could run out of drinking water within several weeks and politicians are pushing to undo laws that protect several endangered species. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) / Getty Images

Written by

Steve Newman

Residents of a gritty cowboy and mining town in Australia’s Queensland State may have to pack up and leave because of a protracted drought that has nearly exhausted their water supply. Cloncurry’s mayor, Andrew Daniels, says that after two dry years, the community may have to switch to water from bore holes, which will require people to boil it for consumption.

If those sources dry up, he says all 3,000 residents could have to hit the road. “It’s a scary thought, but I’m hoping and praying that rain comes before we have to get to that,” Daniels told the Australian Associated Press. In 2008, Cloncurry brought water in by rail from Mount Isa, 75 miles away. But that’s not possible during this drought because the outback neighbor is also considering evacuation as a last resort.

Dolphin Mystery

More than 400 dead dolphins have washed up over the past month on some of the same beaches in Northern Peru where scientists were never able to determine what killed some 850 of the animals in 2012. IMARPE, the Peruvian Sea Institute, says 220 of the dead marine mammals were found during the last week of January alone.

Marine biologists say determining what’s killing the dolphins is difficult because their laboratories have only three or four of the approximately 100 chemicals available to solve the mystery. But one institute official says the animals may have died from ingesting toxic algae. Peru’s Organization for the Conservation of Aquatic Animals theorized in 2012 that the deaths were caused by ship sonar blasts used for seabed oil exploration, based on the damage found in some of the dolphins’ middle ear bones.

Tropical Cyclones

Tropical Storm Kajiki killed three people as it cut through the same part of the Philippines devastated by Typhoon Haiyan late last year. New Caledonia was drenched by Cyclone Edna, the second such storm to strike the French territory from the Coral Sea in less than three weeks. Tropical Storm Edilson passed to the east of Mauritius and Reunion in the western Indian Ocean.

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Lava Victims

Efforts to allow people to return to their homes near a Sumatran volcano after months in evacuation enters proved deadly when the mountain exploded without warning a day after they went home. Sixteen people perished when Mount Sinabung produced a series of blasts that showered villages, farms and trees with a thick, gray ash. Local disaster officials said most of the victims were burned by lava bombs that fell on the village of Sukameriah. It was inside a 3-mile danger zone around Sinabung’s crater where evacuees had not yet been told to return, but many locals have regularly gone back to check on their belongings.

Earthquakes

The far western Greek island of Kefalonia was hit by a powerful aftershock of a comparable quake that damaged dozens of buildings there just a week earlier. Thousands of residents had been living with relatives or in ships because they felt it was unsafe at home due to ongoing aftershocks.

Earth movements were also felt in southern Iran, northern Borneo, the New Zealand city of Christchurch, northern Cuba and the Florida Keys, northwestern Washington and southern Kansas.

Climate Fatalities

Penguin chicks in Argentina’s coastal Patagonia are being killed by chilling rains that climate change is bringing to the historically arid region, along with spells of unprecedented heat.

A new study shows that chicks being born on the Punta Tombo peninsula are vulnerable to hypothermia when they grow too big for their parents to keep them warm by sitting on them, and have yet to grow their waterproof feathers.

Increasing rainstorms are drenching them to death. This has been the leading cause of chick deaths on the peninsula during two recent years.

Flood Control

The seemingly never-ending floods that have plagued Britain for the past several weeks could be averted in the future by reintroducing beavers to the wild, a leading scientific organization advises. The animals were hunted to extinction in the U.K. during the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century by those who wanted their fur and by landowners keen to protect their trees and fish. Manmade diversion of waterways since then has reduced the land’s natural ability to hold water.

One wild beaver was recently sighted in Dorset, and a trial introduction of the animals is nearly complete in Scotland. The government has considered paying farmers to hold back water in the uplands at the cost of millions of pounds per year.

“The beaver could achieve the same effects for free and forever if we are bold enough to re-establish and tolerate it as a natural component of our river systems,” said Marina Pacheco, the U.K. Mammal Society’s chief executive.